Level Up! The Guide to Great Video Game Design, 2nd Edition

Bonus Level 3

Game Design Document Template

THE FOLLOWING PAGES provide a template for creating a game design document, or GDD. This template skewed toward an action, adventure, platform, RPG, or shooter-style game. However, you can adapt most of the elements listed in the template for any style of game. I just wanted to give you a starting point. If your game is a driving game, then obviously you are going to describe the vehicles and how they handle rather than a character and his/her moves.

Don’t feel as though you have to fill in every detail of information while creating the GDD, but it is better to have areas of the design roughed out than not to have them at all. I tell the developers I work with that listing “TBD” is better than nothing at all. You are trying to get an idea of the scope of the work involved. You can always come back to it later.

Remember that a GDD is a living thing: everything in it is liquid and might change due to anything from technology limitations to production time realities.

In the end, this template should be a guide to help you get started, but what matters most is that your team understands what the game is about and how they are going to make it. If you need to draw pictures to get your teammates to understand the gameplay, then do so. If listing everything in bullet points helps them understand the game play, then do that instead.

COVER

(Insert evocative cover image here)

 

 

YOUR GAME’S TITLE

Document version number (keep this current!) ...